THE WAR IN EUROPE CRASHES TO AN END

World War II began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Two days later, France and Great Britain declared war against Germany. On Dec. 11, 1941, Germany declared war on the U.S. four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Adolph Hitler committed suicide in his bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin on April 30, 1945. His successor as head of state, Admiral Karl Donitz, authorized subsequent unconditional surrenders of German forces to the Western Allies at Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s headquarters and to Soviet military leaders on May 7, the formal surrender took effect at one minute past midnight the following day. May 8 is commemorated as VE (Victory in Europe) Day in the U.S., Great Britain, and other European nations.

The tolls of military and civilian casualties are almost too great to comprehend. Hitler’s genocide against European Jews cost six million lives. Millions of civilians died from as a result of combat, famine and disease. Millions of members of the armed forces were killed in combat or died in captivity or sustained permanent physical and psychological wounds.

Individual accounts can bring us closer to understanding great tragedies. These were shared with me by a friend and patients.

FW had married a short time before being drafted into the British Army in 1939. His unit guarded the perimeter at Dunkirk in May 1940 so that 338,000 British and French troops could be evacuated. He spent five years in a German prisoner-of-war camp and months afterward recuperating from tuberculosis. Unfailingly kind and cheerful, he joined the staff of an Oxford University college and ran a handyman service on the side.

GG, a young, Lithuanian Jewish woman, was shipped to a concentration camp in Poland in 1941. She avoided having her head shaved, concealing her long blond hair beneath a cap. Standing in a line outside a gas chamber she unbound her hair. A German officer pulled her from the lineup. She spent the war years as a servant in a German household. Postwar, she was a displaced person for months before immigrating to the U.S. and marrying. In her later years as a widow, she experienced waves of sadness and severe headaches, which drove her to contemplate suicide repeatedly. Reunion with a sister, whom she thought had perished, and the expert assistance of a psychiatrist finally brought a measure of peace to her life.

JM served in the U.S. Army in France in 1944 when machine gun fire severely wounded him. He spent two years in hospital, undergoing multiple surgeries. He emerged from his ordeal with painful, severely maimed arm and leg. Always optimistic, he found great joy in creating and maintaining an extensive flower garden.

Captured in France, U.S. infantryman TT spent months in a German prison camp where he suffered severe malnutrition. Building a family and a career postwar, he continually battled episodes of fear and anxiety for years thereafter.

EG lost his dominant right forearm to a gunshot wound while serving in the U.S. Army in France. Postwar, he built a family and a career as a physicist. His prosthetic arm seemed no hindrance to his active life.

VP volunteered for the U.S. Army Nursing Corps in 1942. She served as a triage nurse in a surgical hospital that stayed close to the front lines of combat in North Africa, Italy and Germany, assessing and providing initial care to thousands of wounded soldiers and civilians. She was part of a medical team that evaluated recently liberated prisoners at a Nazi concentration camp. So amazingly strong and compassionate, she provided a window into how seemingly overwhelming suffering can be addressed by a team of expert caregivers (as is seen today on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic).

Honor VE Day and the men and women whose sacrifices defeated the barbarity of Nazism.